Our New Online Cage
by Carmek
Summary: It was supposed to be our gate to our own freedom, somewhere we can do whatever we want, when we wanted to. It was supposed to be a place where we weren't bound by the needs of the company and also a place where we could just be ourselves for a little while. But our freedom was short lived, the world we wanted to live in so badly, was just another cage.


Prologue

"Thank you very much!" We all bowed in unison and thanked the crew and staff for all their hard work. We had just finished shooting the music video for our new single. I smiled and respectfully bowed to all the staff and senior artists in the hallway, but truthfully, on the inside I was itching to get that dress off of me. But as the leader, lead vocals and rhythm guitarist, I couldn't just run in the hallway just because I didn't want to wear a dress anymore. I had to be responsible for my group.

We walked into the dressing room and closed the door, still smiling and thanking all the people that passed by. When the door was fully shut, something in our heads clicked and we quickly started to change out of our outfits. Each of us had our own individual color, mine happened to be my favorite, a light blue. It was a strapless dress that was cut off right above the knees and zippered in the back. When our coordinator showed this to me, even though it was my favorite color, she had a tough time trying to convince me to wear it. I hated showing too much skin but in the music industry, it's a given nowadays. It's hard keeping up with the fashion because it changes so often.

"Hey, Ayumi, can you help me with this?" I turned around to see our bassist, Keiko, trying to un-zipper herself. She seemed to have come up with the brilliant solution that jumping up and down would help her hand reach the zipper- she was very wrong. I laughed as I walked over to her.

"Stop moving! I need to actually touch the zipper so I can un-zip you," I said. I grabbed at the zipper of her pink dress, but with no luck. Keiko wouldn't stop trying to convince the zipper to come to her hand. In an attempt to stop her, I grabbed her shoulders and pushed down, planting her feet to the floor. I saw her surprised face from the sudden impact and couldn't help but smile. While she was distracted, I brushed away her dark brown hair and un-zippered her.

She turned around to face me, and smiled at me sheepishly.

"I would have got it eventually!" She said.

"No, you wouldn't have," said Masuyo trying to hold in her laugh. She was the oldest in our group with the old age of 19. We always made fun of her for it but in reality, she looked the youngest out of all of us. Her skin was always a milky white and her short blonde bob hair made her look even younger. She was the famed main vocalist and lead guitarist of our group, HOPE.

Masuyo had her back turned to Ava, who was un-zipping Masuyo as she talked. Ava joined the company only recently, but really showed her talent for the drums. Which was a coincidence because a drummer was all we lacked as a band. Since Ava was from the United States, her Japanese still wasn't the best, but it was comprehensible. She was half Japanese, half Caucasian so she spoke some Japanese at home with her mom, but other than that, Japanese was completely new to her. And because of the language barrier, Ava didn't talk much. But, despite that, Ava was a really hard worker; she was always the first one in the practice room and also always the last one out. She didn't seem very comfortable around us yet, but when she was playing her drums, she looked the most content.

"Ayumi, can you…" Ava shyly called to me and pointed at Masuyo's zipper that looked caught on some of the excess fabric on the inside of the light green dress. I walked over and helped her un-zipper the dress. I smiled at her and she gave me a little smile in return.

"Thanks…" She said softly.

"No problem, turn around so that I can un-zip you, too," I pointed my finger down and swirled it in a circle, indicating that I wanted her to turn around. She gave me a puzzled look and spun around, then faced me again. I smiled and turned her around myself and un-zipped her pure white dress.

Ava jumped and spun back around.

"Why…" She asked. Her face was flushed and her hands clutched the hem of her dress for dear life.

"You have to change, "I said "You don't want to go back to the dorm with that tight dress on, right?"

She thought for a moment, then shook her head "no". She helped me undress as well and proceeded to change into her normal clothes.

When we were all dressed in our plain jeans and t-shirts, we met our manager in the hallway. As usual, out manager had an armful of gifts in his arms. Ever since our second single, "Up high" topped the world charts, our fans have grew and also the amount of gifts that they would send. One fan the year before had sent us a mountain of chocolate, and I wish I could say that I meant that as a figure of speech. We were so sugar high afterwards.

Out manager handed us the gifts in the van and drove us to the dorm. He helped us transport the heavy gifts to our living room.

"Girls, don't stay up too late eating the gifts or playing with them because you still have early schedules tomorrow. That means you, Keiko. Don't keep the others awake this time." Our manager said to Keiko, who was already eating some of the sweets.

She stopped eating and started grumbling to herself.

"Just after three sleepless nights, people start…" She continued mumbling until the manager gave me a pat on the back and a playful wink for encouragement and left the dorm.

"Alright, team! Let's get these gifts open quick and go to sleep. We have early schedules tomorrow after all. Okay, split up the gifts by who it is for and all the edibles that we can eat later go in the fridge. Everything that we can keep, store it somewhere safe. As for letters, put them in your individual Letter Box." I instructed the girls and gave them a playful salute. They returned the gesture and went to their work.

It was already 11 pm when we finally finished. We were about to go to sleep when Ava grabbed my hand as I was going into our room.

"One more…" She said and pointed under the couch. I looked under and pulled out a small box, wrapped in a light blue paper and decorated with a bright pink bow. There was also a note taped to the package, "May the link start! Enjoy your game and the freedom that comes with it! Maybe we'll see each other there!"

Ava and I looked at each other with excitement. Freedom was the only word that stuck in our heads. I called Masuyo and Keiko over so that we could open the gift together.

"Haven't I seen this before?" Keiko asked. Masuyo nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "Looks awfully familiar."

"Game… famous… most wanted…" Said Ava.

"Oh, this is THAT game!" Keiko exclaimed.

A game? I thought. How would this game grant freedom?

"Sword Art Online?"


End file.
